As utilized widely in the semiconductor industry, in the pharmaceutical industry, and in diverse other industries, glove boxes are equipped with elongate gloves, into which workers can insert their hands and their arms and which enable them to handle materials, to conduct tests, and to perform other operations, in controlled environments. Typically, an elongate glove for a glove box has a hand-covering portion and an arm-covering portion, which extends from the hand-covering portion and which has an overall length at least two or more times the overall length of the hand-covering portion, e.g., an overall length of about 1000 millimeters. The overall length of a glove, such as an elongate glove for a glove box, is measured along a centerline extending from the tip of the middle finger-covering region of its hand-covering portion to the mouth of its arm-covering portion.
Commonly, a shorter glove, e.g., a glove having an overall length of about 450 millimeters, when measured similarly, is made on a porcelain mold having a glazed exterior by successive steps of dipping the porcelain mold successively into a bath containing a coagulating agent and into a bath containing a latex, then allowing the porcelain mold to dwell in the bath containing the latex until enough of the latex coagulates to form a wet latex film on the porcelain mold, and then withdrawing the porcelain mold having the wet latex film formed thereon from the bath containing the latex. After the wet latex film has dried, the resultant glove is stripped from the porcelain mold.
However, it can be very difficult to make an elongate glove, such as a glove having its arm-covering portion with an overall length at least two or more times the overall length of its hand-covering portion, by similar steps, because a wet latex film is heavy and tends to slide down a porcelain mold having a glazed exterior, particularly if the porcelain mold has a substantially conical region, which flares upwardly and outwardly, when the porcelain mold is oriented in a dipping orientation. Heretofore, various expedients, such grooves formed in a porcelain mold having a glazed exterior or tape applied onto such a mold, have been devised to counter the tendency of a wet latex film to slide down a porcelain mold having a glazed exterior, particularly if the porcelain mold has a substantially conical region, which flares upwardly and outwardly, when the porcelain mold is oriented in a dipping orientation.
Heretofore, as exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 4,329,312, it has been known to sandblast selected areas on the hand-defining portion of a porcelain form, so as to provide a resultant glove with textured gripping surfaces on its hand-defining portion.